When a domestic servant married a Tamil Canadian citizen, it raised many brows. It was generally understood as a gift of the place where she was working, as there the Spirit is their inspiration.
Thinking is known to be the mind's most valuable endowment. Imagination is superior to thinking. In grading the powers of mind and its representatives, Sri Aurobindo puts the philosopher below the poet and the yogi above the poet. The philosopher thinks, the poet exercises his imagination. A great poet like Shakespeare or Valmiki is born when in his imagination personal experiences are transformed into impersonal truths. The phrases into which such ideas go remain in the language forever.
Instructions are descriptions of work one has in mind to be communicated to another for execution. To have one's own ideas expressed in work by oneself is not always fully possible, as the factors involved in the transition are many. Another mind is a rich resource that can contribute to the work and distort the outcome. Unless the receiver of the instruction is a passive instrument faithful to the instruction, the message ends up differently.
In this century, there were three occasions of excessive rainfall. One was in 1914. That was the year when the Divine Mother first came to India to meet Sri Aurobindo. Her arrival was heralded by the material Grace of rainfall. Another was in 1950.
Atheists or unbelievers may be serious or causal. In a verbal contest a believer challenged his unbelieving friend. "My dear friend, I cherish your opinions, but I beg to differ here. For example, I know Sundays and Thursdays are auspicious for you. You may be irreligious or non-religious, but these astrological facts are inexorable. Tell me the most significant event or events of your life.
When the heart opens to the soul by its devotion, it hears the celestial music, known in India as venuganam, the music of Krishna's flute. A young unmarried lady, past marriageable age was endowed with that spiritual maturity in her heart. It is pure saintliness. She was on the threshold of heavenly Bliss. Taking to any spiritual discipline, she would have blossomed into a Saint. She was not aware of her own inner endowment beyond the moments of ecstatic JOY given by the music of the spheres, nor was she spiritually inclined.
The I Ching is an age-old tradition in China. It is a book of 64 hexagrams and cryptic statements. Reference to the book is an elaborate religious ritual of meditation, tossing of coins, etc. When referred to properly, I Ching reveals the future as well as past very precisely. A constantly recurring theme there is given as the title to this article, "Persistence in the Righteous Course Brings Reward".
Someone who was brought up in a tense, quarrelsome house visited a happy family. With a sense of amazement he said, "Indeed, it is a truly happy family, remarkable in being cheerful. Harmony is the only note they know. At anytime there are about ten people there. About twenty people dine there. Hospitality is their life breath. The family knows nothing of what we describe as family quarrels. It is unheard of in that family that one person is not on speaking terms with another.
One strong mark of Spirit is GOOD WILL. One can say that Good will is synonymous with Spirit. It is an age-old observation that when a great soul is born, life around suddenly becomes mere prosperous. If one successfully invokes Spirit and continues to develop in that direction, all those who are related to him by good will witness a parallel development in their own Prosperity.
Word of Mouth is more powerful than an advertisement in 'The New York Times' is the experience of all experienced people in any walk of life. We see a book like Gone with the Wind selling in millions while equally good books peter out in their sales after an initial spurt. The same phenomenon we see between Nehru and Gandhiji on one side and Subhas Chandra Bose and Jayaprakash on the other side. One leader is as charismatic as another, but one rides the wave while the other does not.